To Wound the Autumnal City
by Sangri Star
Summary: Siam cannot remember who he was before... He wasn't sure then, either. All because of those dreams that felt so real and he thought it was him, and yet it wasn't him. Inspired from Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany.


He opened his eyes and looked at the cold metal ceiling. He couldn't remember exactly how long he had been on the Nebuchadnezzar. It could have been months, maybe years. Most likely years, he guessed.

He had forgotten his name. His real name, the one he possessed back when he lived in the matrix. Was it Henry? Or was it Andrew? Maybe it _had_ been Henry. Wait, it most definitely had to have been David. But Matrix names didn't matter anymore. He was called Siam now.

He ruffled his dirty blonde hair with long fingers. He closed his eyes, too tired to get out of bed and work. He had been working a long time. Every day was a trial, and the whole crew knew it. He had pushed himself so far, and he was exhausted. After all, he was only human.

In his drifting, he thought of his past. He remembered sitting around, playing video games with his buddies. What were their names again? He couldn't remember them either. He had gone to school. Had he been in high school or college when he heard about the Matrix and got out? He figured it was high school. It seemed right for his age. But what exactly was his age?

He could only remember one clear thing. As a teenager, he had had strange dreams. They weren't premonitions; they weren't suppressed emotions or visions of trauma. Although some of them did seem to be traumatizing, the events had never happened to him. Or maybe it had, and he had shoved them into his subconscious.

In these dreams, he had been called Siam, as he was now. He remembered running around with a strange group of people, called Scorpions. They had chains twisted around their bodies with prisms, mirrors, and lenses. On these chains, they had projectors that would show a holographic image. Most of them were of animals. He had chains and a projector too, but he never found out what his creature was.

The scorpions were made of mainly black people and quite a few mixed people. Whites were rarely seen. He found it odd that in the dreams he was not white as he was now. Instead, he was black. All the people seemed to know him, but he didn't know them that well. He did remember names, though. There was Nightmare, Dragon Lady, Thirteen, Copperhead, and Glass. And those were the most he could remember. There were dozens of them, though.

The one everyone talked about was the Kid. The Kid was Indian, Siam thought. The Kid just walked into town one day and it was history after that. He was a good guy. He wrote poetry and even published a book called _Brass Orchids_. Siam read it. There was something amazing about the Kid.

The scorpions all lived together in apartments or deserted houses. Something had happened to the city they were living in. It was called Bellona. But he never found out what had happened.

They would make runs to get food or other important things from empty places. Most of their lives were spent making runs and having wild sex. He had partaken in the activities many times. He remembered when they had tried making a run at an old department store called Embroiky's. It had supposedly been empty. However, there were people in there, and in particular, a woman with a gun. She shot him in the arm, and it hurt so much. The Kid had saved him, though. He made sure he had gotten taken care of. He remembered sitting on a bus immediately afterwards, bleeding, scared as hell.

The dreams had seemed so real, but he knew that they had been events that never happened to him. Perhaps, he thought, was it a past life? Was he the reincarnate of the real Siam, the one of Bellona?

But how could he be sure of that when he couldn't even be sure of his real name?

As Siam turned on his side and fell back asleep, he could swear that he felt chains clinging to his chest.

"I distrust few things more deeply than acts of literary explication.

Here is a book. Go inside.

It's your turn now.

Circular ruin.

Hall of Mirrors.

Ring of Flesh.

The smoldering outskirts reconfiguring with each step you take.

Bellona.

Remember me to them."

---- William Gibson, foreword in _Dhalgren_ by Samuel R. Delany

(Author's note: I love the book _Dhalgren_. I read it recently, and it is what inspired me to create the character Siam in _Finding Morpheus_. I just love that name!)


End file.
